Mahela's century overpowers England - Nice Balance Start for the series with 1-1 !

Sri Lanka 309 for 5 (Jayawardene 144, Sangakkara 69, Mathews 46*, Swann 2-42) beat England 240 (Morgan 52, Randiv 3-43, Lakmal 3-43 ) by 69 runs

Mahela Jayawardene produced a beautifully crafted 144 from 150 balls, the highest of his 15 ODI centuries and his fifth against England, as Sri Lanka put the memories of their soggy defeat at The Oval to one side with an imposing 69-run victory in the second one-day international at Headingley. Faced with a stiff target of 310, England threatened for a while, particularly while Eoin Morgan was compiling a 37-ball half-century, but eventually succumbed to 240 all out.

With the sun on their backs and little on offer in the pitch, Sri Lanka's morale seemed transformed in the space of three days, and once Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara had overcome the setback of two careless run-outs at the top of the innings, there was little that England could do to contain them. The pair added in 159 for the third wicket in 29.1 overs - a record for Sri Lanka against England, beating the mark of 140 that the same two men set at Durham during the 5-0 whitewash in 2006.

Though Sangakkara was eventually dragged out of his crease by Graeme Swann and stumped for 69, that wicket was the only one that any of England's bowlers managed in the first 45 overs of the innings. Jayawardene eventually followed in the same fashion seven overs later, but at 271 for 4 with 29 balls of the innings remaining, the stage was set for Angelo Mathews, who biffed 41 from 27, before Nuwan Kulasekera and Jeevan Mendis carried the score past 300 in the final over of the innings.

In reply, England's openers did begin with some confidence. With criticism of his role still being voiced in the media, Alastair Cook knew he needed to make his presence felt, especially after opting to chase on a good batting wicket. He and Craig Kieswetter pushed along to 52 without loss in the 10-over Powerplay, with Cook demonstrating his improvisatory side with a scoop for four over the wicketkeeper's head off Kulasekara.

However, the weight of Sri Lanka's runs told on England's batsmen in the end. Kieswetter pulled a Lakmal bouncer to deep square leg for 25, before Kevin Pietersen was superbly caught on the long-on boundary by a diving Lasith Malinga. Cook's own stay ended when he drove Suraj Randiv down the throat of wide long-on for a 52-ball 48, while Jonathan Trott - who had once again been batting to his own tempo - had no answer to a superb inswinging yorker from Lakmal that crashed into his middle stump, and sent him on his way for 39 from 54 balls.

At 144 for 4 in the 28th over, the prospects of victory were bleak, but Morgan injected some genuine life into the innings with another superb display of calculated aggression. He signalled the charge with back-to-back sixes off the legspin of Jeevan Mendis, but with 109 still needed from the final 13 overs, Randiv tweaked an offspinner past his outside edge and Sangakkara, after a struggle to get the ball under control, whipped off the bails. It was all the invitation that Sri Lanka needed to go for the kill, as victory was wrapped up with 25 balls to spare.

Despite a few glimpses from England's batsmen, they lacked a player such as Jayawardene who could combine excellence with endurance. Despite his rough patch of form in the Test series, in which he failed to reach even a half-century in six attempts, this was Jayawardene's second ODI hundred in three innings, following his brilliant but futile performance in the World Cup final in Mumbai. In the absence of the retired Sanath Jayasuriya, he moved up the order to open alongside Dilshan, and responded just as he had done at Bristol in the Twenty20 last week, with a typically attractive and fluent performance.

With exquisite timing and placement through the off-side, and a voracious eye for an opportunity off the pads, Jayawardene racked up 14 fours in his stay, and picked his pace up as the innings progressed. After weathering a testing new-ball spell from James Anderson and Tim Bresnan, he reached his first fifty from 68 balls, his second from 50, and his final 44 came from 32.

At The Oval on Tuesday, both Jayawardene and Sangakkara had been among the early casualties as England reduced Sri Lanka to 15 for 4 in damp seaming conditions. That performance was no doubt a factor for Cook when he turned down the chance to have first use of a flat surface, and when Anderson followed up his Oval performance with seven probing overs for 20, runs did seem hard to come by.

Frustration was certainly a factor in both of England's early breakthroughs. Dilshan was sent on his way for a run-a-ball 9, as Stuart Broad swooped and dived in one motion from mid-on after a crass call for a single, and five overs later, Dinesh Chandimal fell in a carbon-copy fashion, as Anderson this time did the honours from Broad's first ball of the innings.

Dictator Hugo Chavez admits he had cancerous tumors but he is determined to "overcome" health battle !

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan leader, has admitted in a television address that he had a tumor but had undergone a successful operation in Cuba to extract the cancerous cells and was on the road to full recovery.

The 56-year-old made his first televised speech to the nation on Thursday since he had surgery on June 10 in Havana that triggered widespread speculation he might be seriously ill.


Chavez said the medical process was "slow and careful" and added that he was determined to "overcome" the health battle.

His speech was broadcast from Cuba, where Chavez has been for the last three weeks, recovering from surgery on what the Venezuelan government has said was an abcess in the pelvis.

There is huge uncertainty about who could replace Chavez, given the fact that Venezuela's political structures are so closely tied to his persona.

"Chavez is really the man of Venezuela," Al Jazeera's Mariana Sanches explained. "There's really not a figure in the ruling party, or even in the opposition, that will match the charisma that Hugo Chavez has."

Deputy to Hugo Chavez said the regime was united after the emotional speech by Chavez announcing he had undergone successful surgery to remove cancerous cells from a tumor.

Flanked by regime ministers and speaking on state television shortly after Chavez's speech, Deputy to Chavez Elias Jaua said Chavez's wide-reaching socialist reforms would be "deepened" despite his ill health.

An Asian Dictator too had a similar cancerous issue but according to internal sources he had not recovered yet

France confirms Libya arms drops - By arming civilians, France becomes first NATO country to admit supplying weapons to opposition controlled areas in Libya !

The French military has confirmed that it airdropped weapons early this month to civilians fighting in freedom figter-held areas in the western part of Libya.

Colonel Thierry Burkhard, a spokesperson for the French general staff, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the military had dropped assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers to groups of unarmed civilians it deemed to be at risk.

Earlier in the day, the Le Figaro newspaper and the AFP news agency reported that France had dropped several tonnes of arms, including Milan anti-tank rockets and light armoured vehicles.

The airdrops arrived somewhere in freedom figter-held towns in the Nafusa mountains, which run east-west from the Tunisian border around 100km south of the capital Tripoli.

The admission by France has already provoked a reaction from the African Union (AU).

"What worries us is not who is giving what, but simply that weapons are being distributed by all parties and to all parties. We already have proof that these weapons are in the hands of al-Qaeda, of traffickers," Jean Ping, the AU Commissioner, said.

"These weapons will contribute to the destabilisation of African states."

freedom figters control most of the Nafusa, up to the town of Yafran, while regime forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi still hold Gharyan, a key town that lies astride the north-south road to the capital.


The French military spokesperson said France had become aware in early June that rebel-held villages had come under pressure from loyalist forces.

"We began by dropping humanitarian aid: food, water and medical supplies," he told the AFP news agency.

"During the operation, the situation for the civilians on the ground worsened. We dropped arms and means of self-defence, mainly ammunition."

Burkhard described the arms as "light infantry weapons of the rifle type" and said the drops were carried out over several days "so that civilians would not be massacred".

Though Burkhard framed the French weapons supplies as a method of protecting civilians in accordance with the UN mandate, it was still unclear whether such air drops violated the arms embargo.

NATO countries such as the United States have tried to emphasise that they are not taking sides in the conflict and that their strikes on Gaddafi's armour, anti-aircraft emplacements and command bunkers are only meant to protect civilians.

They have denied trying to kill Gaddafi, though US Admiral Samuel Locklear, a NATO commander in Naples, Italy, reportedly told a visiting US congressman in May that they were actively targeting and trying to kill him.

Anyway many political analysts believe that end of Dictator Gaddafi is almost near.

Anderson Sinks Sri Lanka ! - England Win by massive 110 runs !

England 229 for 8 (Kieswetter 61, Morgan 45) beat Sri Lanka 121 (Anderson 4-18, Swann 3-18) by 110 runs - D/L

Alastair Cook's personal contribution may have been modest in the extreme, but he will not care a jot about that, after England's new era of ODI cricket was launched with a crushing 110-run victory over Sri Lanka at The Oval. James Anderson was the hero with a spell of three wickets in his first 17 balls, and 4 for 18 all told, as the same opponents who brought England's World Cup campaign to a humiliating conclusion in Colombo three months ago were themselves rolled aside for 121 in a rain-affected encounter.

As grudge matches go, this was not exactly a high-octane encounter. Long before a three-hour delay for a thunderstorm had reduced the contest to 32 overs a side, the peculiar comings and goings of Sanath Jayasuriya had reduced the contest to something of a circus. Nevertheless, for Anderson, there was personal atonement at stake. He had not even been selected for that ten-wicket trouncing at the World Cup, after succumbing to exhaustion towards the end of England's winter odyssey. But under the Oval floodlights he demonstrated his qualities in an irresistible performance, which also included a brilliant leap at midwicket to give Jade Dernbach his maiden ODI wicket.